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Architects: milanesi | paiusco
- Area: 33334 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Arch-Exist
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Lead Architects: Claudio Milanesi, Diego Paiusco
Text description provided by the architects. This project serves as the Tederic International Center, located in Qiantang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China (Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone), bringing together a world-class cluster of smart manufacturing industries. The campus spans a total site area of 33,335 square meters, with a total built-up area of 75,117 square meters. It comprises three buildings and a smart factory. It integrates various functions, including office spaces, hotels, and commercial facilities, capable of accommodating thousands of people for work and daily life. The project aims to strike a new balance between open commercial spaces and enclosed manufacturing factories.
Design Concept - The design of the project is inspired by one of the core components of manufacturing — the electric motor, which converts electrical energy into kinetic energy to drive essential equipment in transportation, industry, technology, and other sectors of modern society. The daily collaborative work of Tederic's employees mirrors particles moving and interacting within the campus, continuously providing energy to Tederic's products.
This concept is reflected in architectural design, where Tederic's headquarters is connected to the smart factory through the Red Bridge, symbolizing a continuous flow of energy. The factory's form and the interplay of light and shadow resemble a battery, powering the perpetual operation of the manufacturing system.
This unique design not only offers a new expressive form for industrial buildings but also pushes the boundaries of the aesthetics and functionality of polycarbonate panels. It imparts a fresh identity significance, turning this factory into an iconic urban landmark, both in function and appearance.
Architectural Language - The high-tech design style of the project reinforces the identity of both the technology innovation community and the client's high-end manufacturing profile. Clean lines form a simple yet powerful silhouette, emphasizing standardized geometric units and the use of modern materials, creating a sense of lightness and orderly structure. The double-layered curtain walls and outward-protruding wings not only produce a layered effect with a dynamic interplay between solid and void but also enhance the building's visual depth and sense of motion. The curtain wall is a critical component of a building's thermal performance, accounting for approximately 40% of overall energy consumption, making it essential for achieving energy efficiency. The double-layer curtain wall system is based on an aluminum profile prefabricated unit, significantly reducing construction time and improving efficiency.
- Glass curtain wall - The Low-E coated laminated glass effectively blocks infrared and ultraviolet rays, ensuring excellent thermal performance. In addition, after multiple rounds of sampling, simulation, and testing, the project ultimately selected 12 types of glass to account for varying light conditions on different facades. This approach not only ensures a consistent reflective visual effect across the entire campus but also helps the client control and reduce costs to the greatest extent possible.
- Shadow layer - After a comparative study of perforated panels, woven mesh, and expanded aluminum mesh, the cost-effective expanded aluminum mesh was selected as the lightweight shading layer. This material not only maintains an optimal light transmission rate but also effectively reduces the surface reflectivity of the building, minimizing glare and enhancing visual comfort. Additionally, the structural design of the expanded aluminum mesh promotes air circulation, further improving the building's energy efficiency.
- Shadow box - The combination of reflective backing panels and glass cleverly conceals fire protection systems and structural components within the shadow box, achieving an optimal sense of layering and shadow effects. This design ensures transparency and visual consistency, giving the building façade a more refined and modern appearance.
- Architectural wing - In addition, operable windows were integrated within the building's wings to enhance natural ventilation and indoor comfort. By altering the traditional window-opening mechanism, each full-height glass panel offers an extra-wide clear width, providing expansive views while maintaining functionality.
Smart Factory - The smart factory features a triangular truss structure, with all connection joints structurally optimized during the design process. This not only enhances the visual effect but also reduces steel usage by approximately 20%. To accommodate the functional requirement of embedding a visitor pathway on the top level, the design cleverly added inclined columns to bypass the crane beam brackets, creating a visitor pathway on the factory's top floor while minimizing the ground-level footprint. Additionally, the visitor pathway is connected to the headquarters' reception hall via the Tederic Orange (the brand color) Bridge, achieving a seamless and complete visitor flow.
Additionally, the lightweight and translucent nature of the polycarbonate panels reduces the need for artificial lighting and decreases the amount of steel required, leading to substantial cost savings for the project. Through multiple rounds of testing and research, including model simulations and prototype experiments, customized connection joint components were designed, and the drainage slope was increased to effectively address the risk of material deformation caused by extreme weather and temperature fluctuations. This design significantly improves the structure's stability and durability, ensuring safety and reliability under various climatic conditions.
